'Out Of Gas'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
I don't think I'm going to be able to resist seeing a movie that stars both Ian McKellen and Audrey Tautou no matter how awful a book it's based on. Maybe I can concentrate on their performances like I did on Morgan Freeman's in that crappy Stephen King movie.
edited to specify Dreamcatcher, as "crappy Stephen King movie" really doesn't narrow the field down much.
I loathe Bridges of Madison County for its content rather than its form,
I have just the opposite reaction to The DaVinci Code. The ideas were interesting, and in the hands of a competent prose wrassler I think it could have been a terrific book. Alas.
How does crap writing like that make the bloody best-seller list? HOW?!?
Because many people care more about the story than about the craft or whatever, and the book is entertaining.
And now I feel the need to check out DaVinci Code to see how it measures up.
Don't. For your own good, really, don't. (To be fair, I only read about a third of it, over DH's shoulder while he was reading it on the train, but I was still cringing in pain at every sentence. I had originally planned to read the whole thing just to see what all the fuss was about, but the glimpses I got convinced me otherwise. Wretched, eye-gougingly bad writing.)
Because many people care more about the story than about the craft or whatever, and the book is entertaining.
See also: James Patterson, current holder of my "world's worst book" title. Like JZ, I read the whole thing, because I couldn't *believe* the writing was that bad the whole way through.
And now I feel the need to check out DaVinci Code to see how it measures up.
TDVC has a lot of bad writing. I have a high tolerance for bad writing if there are enough redeeming features and, with considerable skimming, got through it to see how it would end. On the whole I was glad I'd read it (mostly because my dad wanted to discuss it with me) and it wasn't eye-gougingly bad, ala Night Travels of the Elven Vampire.
After reading PAtterson's flying kids book I didn't think there would be anything worse. But then he wrote a sequel.
After reading PAtterson's flying kids book
YES. That was the book.
t shudder
Damned shame -- I've enjoyed Patterson's work, but the flying kids -- inexcusable. He has written worse, however. They're publishing his old stuff, the stuff he couldn't get published before he got famous.
Watched Ray.
Still staring at screen.
Day-UM!